Mod Balance Guide, Magic Paths

[DrPraetorious]

--ASTRAL--
Astral is obviously a big deal.
Acess to astral 1 is worth an extra 4 points.
Non-capital only astral mages may be good as communion slaves. Give yourself 500/cost for your cheapest non-capital-only mage who us guaranteed an astral. If they're not guaranteed astral, scale to the chance.
If you get astral-3 with better than 10% frequency, even in your capital, your nation has access to the higher level astral boosts, and is a potential mindhunter. This is worth 2 points.
Finally, astral is great for thugs. If you have a giant slavering monster with access to astral magic, give yourself 2 points.

--DEATH--
Death 1 is a significant breakpoint and worth 2 extra points.
Death 2 is also worth 2 extra points.
Death 3 is a significant breakpoint for thugs. If you have a giant slavering monster with death 3, give yourself 2 points.

--EARTH--
Earth 2 is a *huge* breakpoint, worth 6 extra points.

--BLOOD--
Blood 1 is a significant breakpoint, worth 2 extra points. It's generally assumed that you could boost/empower from there if needed.

--COMBINATIONS--
Each of the following combinations, if they appear together with >10% frequency on any unit, are worth an extra point (they're listed in reverse path precedence):
blood + fire, water, air, nature
nature + water, UNLESS you have nature 3 anyway
death + astral
astral + earth (worth 2 points)
water (1+) + fire (3+) (worth 2 points)
air (3+) + earth (2+)

Each of the following combinations, if they appear together on a non-capital only unit, is worth the listed number of points divided by the cost of the unit. The noticably-effective spam spell is listed in parens.
death + astral (nether darts), 500
earth (2+) + fire (magma eruption), 250

I'll flesh this list out later.

Tomorrow I'll post some sample path selections and see if people think they really are balanced.